The city of Old Castle rose from the wasteland like an abscess swelling on the festering skin of a diseased world. Across its neighbourhoods and districts a siren called, lifting and falling with an ominous wail that sent citizens scurrying for their homes. Hiding like monsters in burrows, they prayed that this latest threat from the wastes would pass the city by, while fearing that this time, judgement had come to demand penance for their crimes. The people of Old Castle were rank with guilt. The city was populated by murderers.

And it was my home.

Through the chill of evening shadows, I made my way to the outskirts of Old Castle. No breeze disturbed the air, no sound accompanied the siren’s wail; light from a setting red sun did little to warm a tense ambience. Beyond the last of the buildings, I began crossing a stretch of open ground, heading towards the city wall. But it wasn’t me walking, not really, not any more. I could see through my eyes, hear through my ears, smell the stench of the city, but I had no control over my direction. My footsteps weren’t made of my own volition.

[Extract kindly provided by Del Rey, from around the middle of chapter one. See below for links to Adrian’s first book The End of the World Survivor’s club, his musical influences for it and more…]

I know I wasn’t really alone. I had a husband. I had Ed.

I should have been happy when he turned up at the boat. He’d made it after all. Christ knows how and he looked like hell, but he’d actually bloody made it. He’d plumbed the depths of his spirit, broken through his barriers and by God he’d found us.

Mr Brian Catling (sculptor, poet, novelist, film maker and performance artist) has been on our radar since the beginning of his literary fantasy the Vorrh Trilogy and the appreciation it received from the likes of Alan Moore. September sees the publication of his latest, a standalone novel Earwig of which publisher Coronet notes: “Not since Edgar Allan Poe and the Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita has there been such a masterly tale of feline evil.”

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It’s a smart comparison as anyone who’s read The Master and Margarita won’t be able to help having a deeper look, and more than apt given there’s more than a little of that smart weirdness in Catling’s work as you can read in our extract – kindly provided by Coronet – below…

Out now from Titan Comics, Blade Runner 2019! The graphic novel / collected edition (which might just be one of our monthly highlights) is some months away and we’re the more selective in the book and comic tie-ins we cover next to entirely original works… But BR 2019 has so much going for it we just needed to give it a proper shout now.

So we’re in the year that Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner was set – and a smart idea in the first place, obvious or otherwise, to publish a visual story in that time. But also it’s co-created by Blade Runner 2049 screenwriter Michael Green! That’s not at all to dismiss the other two top co-creators: writer Mike Johnson (Batman / Superman, Supergirl) and artist Andres Guinaldo (Justice League Dark, Captain America)! Not only that – and also why it makes these humble web pages – but it’s noted as being in-canon as well as ongoing…

That’s enough from us – check out a preview from Titan of the first (truly stunning) pages below, followed by a series trailer from YouTube and more information. We’ll update with more from Titan in due course…

There seemed to be no end of love for Stephen Cox’s Our Child of the Stars when the hardback hit the shelves in January, nor since. With the paperback due in September Jo Fletcher Books were good enough to offer us a taster to share…

Always interesting to see what’s coming out from NoBrow and just had to include this – SKIP – from Molly Mendoza on our July highlights. It’s an original graphic novel beginning quietly on a post-apocalyptic Earth, segueing to an abstract second world, then two young people – one from each – begin a journey through surreal realms…

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NoBrow were good enough to offer us some pages to share and those below capture a little of the background, and the styles to be found within, the art moving between the serene and dynamic, the grounded and surreal, and through palettes of colour. They’re a great taster of what you can look forward to in the book itself; but, as anyone who knows NoBrow knows, the production values of their titles are truly stunning and elevate – or reveal – the real quality of the work they’ve chosen to publish. All round a really lovely piece of work.

In this era of pop culture mash-ups few, whichever finally hit the bigtime mainstream market, leap out as anything special. But MR MEN DR WHO? Oh we were onto this without seeing a single image.

The much loved – and still hilarious at any age – Mr Men were of course the creation of Roger Hargreaves, subsequent characters and adventures created and curated by his son Adam. This is his latest and arguably – okay to those of us older than 5 – greatest MM venture, debuting the last week of April 2017 (link below to launch event at Forbidden Planet).

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We spoke to those nice folk at Random House and asked for some preview pages to share. We were onto this without seeing a single image having no doubt how much fun they would be. Damn were we right… 🙂

Best known for their subversive, leftfield SFF comics, frequent partners writer Pat Mills and artist Kevin O’Neill had more recently been working on a satirical crime prose series ‘Read Em and Weep’. Various formats / media possibilities had been investigated before they decided to release the stories as prose electronically and in a limited print run book form under Pat’s own publishing imprint.

The first – Serial Killer – has been available since January but will launch officially at the 2000 AD 40th Anniversary event on Saturday 11th February 2017, the comic being Pat’s creation and the vehicle for his and Kevin’s fantastical comic creations. As part of the 40th Anniversary Pat and Kevin will (at time of writing) also be signing print books this evening at Gosh! Comics who will be the main bricks-and-mortar stockists in the UK.

Full title information and ‘Buy’ and other links can be found at the bottom of this page – but first we’re very pleased and proud to present a preview of SERIAL KILLER ITSELF. Read on and weep – or enjoy either way!

PART ONE: OCTOBER 1975

‘Who’s that Bumpy Man, sir?’

CHAPTER ONE

Stoke Basing Star August 16th 2016.

BODY IN BASEMENT IDENTIFIED

Two weeks ago, homeowner and builder John Trigger was horrified to discover a dead body while he was renovating his house. As theStarreported last week, Trigger, 54, knocked down a basement wall revealing a small secret room behind it. Under its York stone floor were the remains of a woman who, police have confirmed, was strangled with a fur boa found lying beside her.

It’s thought to be Mrs Jean Maudling, 32, who lived in Stoke Basing and was reported missing in 1957. Police have appealed to her daughter, Annie, 71, and son, David, 67, to get in touch with them.

The location and identity of the previous owner of Trigger’s property has not yet been disclosed as police enquiries are still continuing.

There was one further discovery for Trigger. Stuffed in the wall he demolished, along with old newspapers, he found a 1957 British comic The Fourpenny One which he described as ‘very rare, in mint condition’. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve been keeping an eye out for books coming through on the vibrant art form of graffiti and street art generally and we spotted the latest from Art of Publishing and photographer Andy Cantillio, this volume focusing on Rio de Janeiro. We thought we’d give them a shout and see if they wanted to share some of Andy’s amazing photography of the ‘Marvelous City’ from it as a taster…

This week, ‘banned’ episodes of Judge Dredd from the late 1970s are being reprinted for the very first time.

Published in 2000 AD in 1978, The Cursed Earth was the first great Judge Dredd epic, but the story ran into trouble when two episodes – ‘Burger Wars’ and ‘Soul Food’ – featured parodies of Burger King, Ronald McDonald, the Jolly Green Giant, the Michelin Man, and a number of other prominent corporate characters in a raucous and shameless satire of American consumer culture.

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After concerns of legal action at the time the then publisher IPC decided collections of this classic strip would omit the satirical stories. But now, following recent changes in UK law governing parody, Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth Uncensored reprints the story in its entirety for the first time.

Published on both sides of the Atlantic this week and priced at £25 in the UK and $35 in North America, this sparkling action-packed parody from Pat Mills (Charley’s War) and John Wagner (A History of Violence), complete with sumptuous colour spreads from Brian Bolland (The Killing Joke) and Mick McMahon (The Last American), is being produced in a deluxe hardcover edition featuring all the previously banned content. Read the rest of this entry »

In just two years Titan Comics have built an incredible list of comics / graphic novels, cannily acquiring and bringing quality works of yesteryear back into print (The Light & Darkness War), media adaptations (Dr Who and many more) and, of course, original works (Death Sentence, Surface Tension et al).

With a view to the latter they’ve also been tapping the wealth of untranslated talent on the continent and bringing it to the anglophone market. We’re always keeping an eye out for some select highlights to preview and thought we’d do so for Baudy & Trystram’s PACIFIC, coming in Hardback from Titan November 2016…

As Titan tells us:

It’s “Das Boot meets the Pagemaster” in this incredible new OGN, presented in a glorious landscape, hardcover edition.

Young Udo’s first mission in the second world war is as a radio operator aboard a German U-Boat, patrolling the Pacific. In his personal effects, he carries a book banned by the Nazis. When the war hero and master of the vessel, Captain Kaleunt, tries to destroy it, it mysteriously reappears…

See below for preview art – we’ll be updating this page with new material as it comes…

Filled with such things as Giggle Giants, zombie fauns (wait for the pun to hit) and fabulous renditions of trees, moons and stars with faces, and with consistent overdubbed foul-mouthedness, Skottie Young’s I HATE FAIRYLAND is, as Neil Gaiman put it “A candy-coloured and vicious delight” for all ages (“and always dangerously funny” Neil adds).

It hit the stands in April but that’s no reason for us not to shout out about it now we’ve read: here’s our preview of the Image collection to whet your appetite!

Jay Gunn’s Surface Tension was entirely on our radar – we’d plucked it out as one of our February Recommends and, bumping into and chatting with its creator at LSCC 2016, Jay had written an article for us on his musical inspirations for it. Well apparently we weren’t the only ones who were impressed: because – news just in from Titan Comics – it’s just been optioned for a TV series by Awesome Media!

Anyway we’d been meaning to follow up with some preview material for the series and, given we hadn’t got round to before, what better time than now? So find below Titan’s trailer for Surface Tension and some interior art as well.

In a white room on the edge of the Sinus Medii sit six naked teen­ agers. Three girls, three boys. Their skins are black, yellow, brown, white. They scratch at their skins constantly, intently. Depressurisa­tion dries hide, breeds itches.

The room is tight, a barrel barely large enough to stand up in. The kids are wedged on benches facing each other, thighs pressed against their neighbours’, knees touching those opposite. There is nowhere to look and nothing to see except each other but they are shy of eye contact. Too close, too exposed. Each breathes through a transparent mask. Oxygen hisses where the seals are inexact. Just below the window on the outlock door is a pressure meter. It stands at fifteen kilopascals. It has taken an hour to bring the pressure this low.

But outside is vacuum.

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Lucasinho leans forward and once again looks through the small window. The gate is easily visible; the line from him to it is straight and open. The sun is low, the shadows are long and profound, thrown towards him. Blacker on the black regolith, they could conceal many treacheries. Surface temperature is one hundred and twenty Celsius, his familiar had warned. Itwill be a fire-walk.